


a comedown of revolving doors

by stitchingatthecircuitboard



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batgirl: Year One, Character Study, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Graphic gun violence, The Killing Joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchingatthecircuitboard/pseuds/stitchingatthecircuitboard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Do...d'you ever miss it?"</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a comedown of revolving doors

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the wonderful [Julia](vonnegutz.tumblr.com)

“Barbara, you’re fussier than your mother was!” Gordon thumbs away the excess paste, focused and resolute on his work. 

Babs doesn’t sigh, but it’s close. She loves her father, she does, but sometimes—

There’s a knock from the door; she gets up, feeling like a fraud in the prim collared blouse and skirt.

“Was that the door?” Gordon looks up, eyes bright and sharp behind his glasses.

“Yeah, it’ll be Colleen, from across the street,” Babs lies, and wishes the words didn’t come so easily to her lips. “Tonight’s our yoga class.”

“Heh,” Gordon snorts, turns the leaves of the scrapbook. “Look at this one. First time they met. Now—what year was that?”

He’s not even paying attention.

“Well,” Babs says, moving to get the door, “I remember you describing the white face and the green hair to me when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me.” 

“I thought you’d be interested,” he says, not looking up.

“Yeah, well,” she says, turning the handle, “I had some interesting nightmares—”

She sees the face first, and the sick, grotesque smile, and feels for a moment as though she’s drowning.

She doesn’t hear the gun go off; she doesn’t move, can’t tear her eyes from his face, the horror; in her last seconds of standing, Babs can only think, _This is the end._

Then pain rips through her, and it’s like burning alive; distantly, she hears her father shout, distantly, she knows that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Even so—something about it all feels utterly inevitable.

…

_Batgirl._

It’s not a name she would have chosen for herself. She’s not a child—no one whose bedtime stories features the members of Gotham’s rogues’ gallery can stay a child very long; and the costume’s a _joke,_ one at her father’s expense. The Batman is the last person with whom she wants to affiliate. She distrusts him instinctively: the grim brooding line of his mouth, his self-appointment as Gotham’s savior, his working relationship with her father.

It’s a joke (what goes around comes around), but it’s also recognition; it’s her début into the vigilante scene, and Babs supposes that it’ll do for now, at least. Maybe people will finally look past her stature and her smile and see how she wants to _help_. Maybe they’ll finally take her seriously.

They’ll probably still laugh when she shows up at a crime in progress, tiny and wiry, bright hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail, but that’s a mistake she’s content to let them make. Babs can handle herself just fine.

…

_“Barbara, you’re fussier than your mother was!” Gordon thumbs away the excess paste, focused and resolute on his work._

_Babs doesn’t sigh, but it’s close. She loves her father, she does, but sometimes—_

_Sometimes she wishes that there were no lies between them, that she could talk to Gordon about the work they share, that the words, “Dad, I’m Batgirl,” would not be a confession of guilt, the betrayal of his oldest ally, but an offering, a step forward: I am your daughter, through and through, and I need to help, if only because I can; but sometimes it’s so hard, Dad, and sometimes I get scared and sometimes I’m so tired and sometimes I can’t think straight, and sometimes I need you there to remind me why it’s worth it, to remind me that I’m not alone._

_Sometimes I need you, Dad._

…

“You’re one of his gang?” Canary asks, and the world shifts beneath Babs’ feet.

“Um,” she says intelligently, and collects herself. “Yeah…I’m new. Batgirl.”

Black Canary is canny and quick and her hair shines like a halo in the flames of the GCPD, and she’s clever and dogged and beautiful in a way that makes Babs’ veins spark with something more than adrenaline as they race down the highway in their motorcycles. Not for the first time, she’s glad of the cowl, grateful for the motorcycle helmet Robin had lent her, the tint of the visor that, she hopes, hides her exhilaration. 

They still have to rescue her father, of course—and Gordon’s in real danger, she can’t forget that—but god, she loves this, the thrill of standing up for something, each bruise a medal reminding her of what she’s done, of how she can always do better.

But she’s being sloppy, and she’s rarely sloppy, her motions impulsive and instinctive rather than calculated; Canary’s saved her life countless times already since joining forces, despite not knowing who she is and harboring suspicions about her connection to the Batman. Babs wears the bat, and she’s rescuing the captain; and that’s enough, for now.

They still get frogmarched to the door and thrown to the floor, regardless of symbols or capability, and Canary says, “Do me a favor, kiddo,” and Babs says,  
“Name it,” anything, the least she can do after—

“Promise me we won’t ever make this partnership a regular thing,” Canary says, smiling wryly, but smiling nonetheless, and Babs snorts.

“Done,” she promises, but the cold practical part of her thinks, _She’s right._

_Some dynamic duo we’d make._

…

_There’s a knock from the door; she gets up, feeling like a fraud in the prim collared blouse and skirt. This is the costume, if anything is._

_She wonders how her smile can be more a mask than the bat-eared cowl she wears in the dark hours, how the clothes she wears to work at the library feel less professional and more constricting than the suit after years of improvements courtesy of Bruce and his endless piles of money; if in this, if nothing else, she’s more like the Batman than any of them._

_She wonders, sometimes, who she is without the suit._

_“Was that the door?” Gordon looks up, eyes bright and sharp behind his glasses._

…

Robin kissed her.

Robin _kissed_ her.

She has no idea how to feel about it, didn’t even see it coming, the abrupt, nervous press of his mouth over hers, and yes, she’s a little miffed that he cut her off mid-sentence to do it but—

There’s something about it, about the kiss, that leaves her off-balance and shell-shocked in the subway tunnel, and for once she’s at a loss for word and thought. Tentatively, she presses a hand to her lips, the gloves rough where his lips had been soft—

It’s confusing, Babs decides, and if kissing him is something she wants to pursue, if throwing in with him with—with _kisses_ will jeopardize their fragile alliance—those decisions can wait until the earth is steady beneath her feet. Robin doesn’t seem the type to hold it, whatever it is, against her. Small mercies. 

Still—she holds the memory of that kiss in the darkness of her room, examining it like evidence, too wired to sleep after the encounter with the Condiment King; wonders if, wherever he is (she hopes it’s not the Batcave), Robin’s doing the same.

She presses her fingers to her lips and smiles, and wonders, and eventually sleeps.

…

_“Yeah, it’ll be Colleen, from across the street,” Babs lies, and wishes the words didn’t come so easily to her lips. Yoga’s more socially acceptable than a twenty-four hour dojo, she’s found. ‘Colleen’ never comes inside, of course; often as not, Dick sits on her roof while she suits up, occasionally affecting a falsetto if anyone needs the benefit of a voice asking if she’s ready. “Tonight’s our yoga class.”_

_“Heh,” Gordon snorts, turns the leaves of the scrapbook. “Look at this one. First time they met. Now—what year was that?”_

_He’s not even paying attention._

_They haven’t spent any time together in weeks, and he’s not even paying attention._

_When did they become such strangers? When did she become such a liar?_

…

Her perimeter alarms go off, and she quiets them immediately, typing in the security code almost lazily. The red helmet gleams even through her security feeds.

He got her invitation. Good.

Babs rolls about to face the entrance, the curve of the wheelchair intimately familiar after all these years. The door opens, and Jason Todd steps in.

He takes the room in at a glance, eyes lingering on her wall of monitors before shifting to her. He sees her legs, and his expression sours briefly.

“Hello, Jason,” Babs says, as calmly as she can—she almost hadn’t believed it before now, but here he is, back from the dead, not five feet away from her. 

His mouth twists into a smile. “Hey, Babs.” No one else says her name with that gentleness.

“Welcome back,” she says, and smiles, reaching her hand to him. He hesitates, glancing around the room again, and steps forward. His gloves are thick and firm against her fingers, and there’s something hopelessly tentative in his expression.

“Thanks,” he says softly; one edge of his mouth teases up in a small smile.

She boils water in the tiny kitchen, spoons coffee grounds into a filter; he fetches mugs, stuffing his gloves into his back pocket. He picks out the box of honeyed chamomile tea and smiles.

“You remembered.”

“Of course,” she says; how often had they studied late into the night, equations and dates flying past in a sleepless blur?

Jason says, threading through the quiet, “Oracle, huh?”

Babs smiles, sips at her coffee.

“Suits you.” He looks up from the spires of steam, eyes flashing blue to hers.

“I like it,” she agrees. It’s not a lie. 

“Babs—” he says, and his expression fractures for a second, brutal and broken and lonely, “can I ask—”

She tilts her head, takes another measured sip of coffee. He waits, eyes anguished; she wonders if Bruce will ever get to see this.

Probably not.

(He doesn’t deserve it, this hurt in him, in them both. He lost the right to that when the Joker returned to his cozy cell in Arkham for the umpteenth time, laughing all the while.)

“Because,” Babs says deliberately, “in the end—what he did to me, when he shot out my spine, he took nothing from me that mattered. And I help more people, more effectively as Oracle than I ever did as Batgirl.”

He stares at her. “Do…d’you ever miss it?”

“Of course I do,” she says, with more bitterness than she’d expected. “And I hate that he used me to get to Bruce. But I’ve moved on, Jason.”

He sets the tea down on the counter; it sloshes slightly, and he mutters _fuck_ under his breath, swiping the towel at the spill. 

“Sorry.” The tips of his ears are red, and Babs thinks, absurdly, that they match his helmet. His eyes, when he looks at her, are haunted.

“Jay,” she says softly, and he makes a wounded noise, and she reaches for him and he breaks for her, rubbing his tears away angrily as he tells her about Talia al-Ghul and the Lazarus Pit and his year abroad learning how to do terrible things from terrible people and how sometimes he feels ruined and hollow and as though nothing will ever be right again and how the worst of it all isn’t that Bruce couldn’t—didn’t—save him; it’s that he never did anything else, after Jason died.

“Fuck,” Babs says, and rests her hand on his shoulder. He’s kneeling at her side as though penitent and desperate for absolution, and she knows that she’s the only one he can trust with this.

He says, and his voice is rough and ragged from his tears and his grief, “Babs—I—” His eyes flit to her legs, the silvery curves of the wheelchair she used to hate. He swallows, lifts those burning eyes to her. “What—what if—”

“Jason,” Babs says gently. She takes his hand, holds it with all the kindness and tenderness in her heart, and the words come as easily and truthfully as breathing. “I told you. I’ve moved on.”

…

_“Well,” Babs says, moving to get the door, “I remember you describing the white face and the green hair to me when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me.”_

_She remembers in the Batcave, the “make-up” test, as Dick had called it; how she’d thrummed with nerves and a keen-edged excitement, the thought that finally,_ finally _the Batman would acknowledge her ability and her skill and her need to help, that he would finally—accept her, and accept her help, and of course she would have left undeterred regardless, but—_

_It meant something, his approval._

_In a way, she thinks, it was almost like her father’s approval, the Bat’s acceptance of her oath and her service._

_She remembers the moment the Joker mannequin had appeared, the bright chime of a bell ridiculous when paired with the thin cruel smile and the chalk-white hand squeezing a gun._

_She remembers ducking on instinct, preparing reflexively for the high kick that came as naturally as physics, as the Dewey Decimal System, as coding and hacking and bantering with Robin and Canary and missing her father; and she remembers thinking, “If **this** is my future, I’m not afraid of it.”_

_“I thought you’d be interested,” Gordon says; she smiles slightly, a peace offering: You have no idea. He doesn’t see it._

_“Yeah, well,” she says, “I had some interesting nightmares—”_

_She reaches for the door._

**Author's Note:**

> "we auctioned off our memories in the absence of a breeze; scatter what remains, scatter what remains. (fate, don't fail me now.)"  
> metric, [speed the collapse](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiQ1QpNSkA)


End file.
